Thamesdown Marketing Services enters administration

Richard Stuart-Turner
Monday, July 1, 2019

Swindon-based mailing house Thamesdown Marketing Services has gone into administration, with the loss of 45 jobs.

Established in 1997, Thamesdown ceased trading on 21 June, the same day that Rob Keyes and Gareth Roberts of KRE Corporate Recovery were appointed as the company’s administrators by its directors. All staff were made redundant and work in progress was stopped immediately.

The business specialised in high-volume direct mail, data processing, campaign management and logistics and distribution but its volumes had been falling and its turnover had dropped to around £1.6m at the time of closure, according to Keyes.

“It’s a dying market, the mailing industry at that volume. Your overheads are fixed and if you don’t get the volumes, you’re only ever going to go one way,” he told PrintWeek.

“They were heavily into the charitable sector and they just didn’t have the volume of work going through the process.”

A notice of intention to appoint administrators had been filed by Thamesdown on 7 June and Keyes and Roberts had been looking to help sell the company prior to their appointment.

“We tried to find a buyer but nobody stepped forward to buy it as a going concern,” said Keyes.

“We will try and best dispose of the plant and the machinery on a break-up basis. Some of it is on finance, so the finance companies will take their items back, but what is left will hopefully be sold in the next week or two.”

Thamesdown’s premises was leased and it is unclear what equipment the company had been operating at the time of writing.

Keyes said it was “too early to say” if there would be anything left for unsecured creditors.

“We’re still going through the process of trying to evaluate claims and realise assets,” he said.